It's All About the Heroes

Today is publication day for the third and final Vivi Conway novel and I couldn't be more thrilled to feature this Q&A with the amazing creator of these stories. You'll also find that Vivi Conway and the Lost Hero has a review and pride of place as my Book O' The Week on the Armadillo website.

Lizzie Huxley-Jones (they/them) is an autistic author and editor based in South London.

They grew up in Rhuddlan, North Wales, and spent their childhood romping around the old castles, windswept coastline, awe-inspiring mountains, and deep lakes of the Welsh landscape.

In previous jobs, they’ve worked as a research diver, a children’s bookseller and a digital communications specialist. They are the editor of Stim, an anthology of autistic authors and artists, published in April 2020 to coincide with World Autism Awareness Week. They are also the author of the children’s biography Sir David Attenborough: A Life Story (2020), the queer holiday rom-coms Make You Mine This Christmas (2022) and Under the Mistletoe with You (2024), the YA summer romance Hits Different (2024) cowritten with Tasha Ghouri, and a contributor to the anthology Allies: Real Talk About Showing Up, Screwing Up, And Trying Again (2021), which was chosen to be a World Book Day title for 2023, renamed as Being an Ally (2023).

Photo copyright Jamie Drew

The Lost Hero is Vivi’s last adventure. Did you know from the start that this would be a trilogy and how does it feel to have reached the end of the story?

I always knew the beats of the ending, but originally I thought it would be four books, and it was only when I was plotting it out after book two that I realised I just had two sides to one story, so the Vivi saga became three.

Where did Vivi come from, was it a spur of the moment idea or one that you had been nurturing for a while?

I am an entirely self-taught writer, and I knew that I wanted to tell stories inspired by Welsh myths because it’s such an under tapped canon with some really weird myths.

Originally, I wrote a YA fantasy war epic before I realised that wasn’t right, and a few months later, Vivi strolled into my head and never left.

The characters friendships are strong, having have been tested. Is that important for you when creating characters? What difference do you feel it makes to your story?

I spent a lot of time thinking about the main four – Vivi, Dara, Stevie and Chia – particularly in terms of how they complement and differ from each other, as that’s perfect fodder for disagreements ha-ha.

But really, it meant that they all felt like real people who cared about each other in different ways.

Stories, such as Vivi’s, need a villain. How much fun was it to create Arawn, was your creation, how much from the character himself evolving?

My version of Arawn is kind of a composite of ideas – in the old myths he’s not really a bad guy, or much of a trickster, and he definitely doesn’t try to take over the world (as far as I know).

I wanted to write someone who had a really fixed view of what the world should be, how it would work for him, and see how that can get even more warped with revenge.

How much of your own Welsh heritage and perhaps childhood memories have found its way into the story and how important is that heritage to you?

Small parts – Vivi and her Mums borrow the adventures that my parents and I would go on to find the places mentioned in the myths when I was young.

Representing different facets of growing up in Wales is very important to me because the only versions I saw when I was a kid was in evacuee stories –there’s a lot I still want to touch upon!

Did you have any favourite Welsh stories or myths to read or listen to the telling of when you were growing up. Can you tell us a little about any of them and why they became favourites?

I personally really like the myth of the afanc of beaver pool – this one has a few different names – but basically this big old monster kept drowning villages not far from where I grew up, and the only thing that could stop it was the sound of a woman singing. It sounds nice but it’s actually a very gory story, probably why I liked it.

I didn’t really include it in Vivi, but there is an afanc in the series and this is partly where my idea of Chia being a singer came from.

You consciously write to represent specific groups. Why is this important to you?

I include people of all walks and stripes because it’s truth -- my life is full of all kinds of people, and so my fiction should reflect that too.

You’ve had a very varied career, has it helped create Vivi’s adventures?

My stint as a research SCUBA diver definitely helped for the underwater scenes, but I must admit there’s not been quite so much fighting monsters in my life so far (unfortunately).

If you could choose to be one of the characters in the book who would it be and why?

Probably Stevie because then I’d be really good at running and fighting, which feel like useful life skills, especially if that career in monster hunting kicks off.

Vivi has secured your popularity as a children’s author. Are you happy to keep writing for young people?

Oh definitely, there’s a lot more ideas percolating in my head, and kids are the best people to write for.

What comes next, after the promotion of course! A well-deserved holiday, plans for the next book or something else entirely?

A holiday would be lush. Hopefully I’ll be flying back to Massachusetts to see my family soon, perhaps for Hallowe’en for the ultimate trip.

My thanks to Lizzie for her time answering these questions and for Kirsten Cozens of edpr for making it possible.